Gordon Brown yesterday distanced himself from new Housing Minister Caroline Flint after she called for jobless council tenants to find work or lose their homes.

The Prime Minister's aides said he didn't know anything about the plans by Ms Flint, who has only been in the job two weeks.

Adam Sampson, boss of Shelter, said: "The Government wants to return Britain's unemployed to the workhouse by throwing them on to the streets. What is being proposed would destroy families and communities and add to the thousands who are already homeless."

Tuc general secretary Brendan Barber said: "The right to a home is a fundamental right that should not be linked to employment status."

Mr Brown's official spokesman refused five to times to back the under-fire minister.

Ms Flint proposed that new tenants should sign a "commitment contract" to find work. There would also be skills checks to make sure they are employable. And the scheme would be extended to existing tenants affecting up a million people.

More Jobcentres would also be opened on estates.

Ms Flint said she was shocked at the rise in tenants without jobs, up from 20 per cent in 1981 to 55.

She told the Fabian Society on Monday: "The link between social housing and worklessness is stark. I am concerned about what has been called a collapse in the number of people in council housing in work over the past 25 years.

"We need to think radically and start a national debate."

But Labour MP John McDonnell said: "To threaten to make people homeless is more brutal than anything we've seen since the end of the Poor Law. The new generation of ministers and advisers appear to be living up to the mantle of Thatcher's children.

What next? Will it be the novel idea of the workhouse?"

Council house campaigners claimed the ideas were part of a right-wing plot to stigmatise tenants so secure tenancies could be scrapped and estates sold off.

Alan Walter, of the Defend Council Housing campaign, said: "It is an outrage that any Government minister talks to council tenants like this.

"They wouldn't dare treat homeowners in the leafy suburbs with this kind of contempt or try and make their tenure conditional on employment."

Labour MP Austin Mitchell said Ms Flint had "flipped".

Leslie Morphy, of Crisis, said: "Our experience shows encouragement and enablement, and not threats, are the way to help homeless and vulnerable people to build independent lives."

Ms Flint also set out plans to build more affordable housing for first time buyers and council tenants to get compensation when services fall short.

Tory Grants Shapps said: "What we've heard is classic Labour spin; designed to sound tough, but is in reality meaningless."

BLAIR BABE

Flint is a member of tap-dancing troupe the Division Belles along with other female MPs including Hazel Blears